A cheerful ferry cruise: locals hop on and off and there’s no West End entertainment – ​​but this Norwegian ship offers an authentic experience of the fjords at half the price

Ask any Norwegian what the most beautiful coastline in the world is and chances are you will get the same answer.

“It’s the stretch that runs north of Bergen all the way to the Russian border,” they’ll tell you with a proprietary gleam in their eyes.

Few who have been there would disagree. It’s not just the fjords with their almost sheer cliffs that plunge into the inky waters below.

There is something else that is just as attractive. As you head towards the Arctic Circle, as the trees and houses thin out and you enter the land of the midnight sun, you have an inescapable feeling of leaving the mess and chaos of everyday life behind. To go to the edge of things.

The problem in the past was that anyone who wanted to venture to the edge of the world had to do so aboard a gigantic cruise ship, or on a rugged, practical ship that offered good views but little comfort. to go with them. Until now, that is.

For the past 18 months, Havila has been sailing this route in hybrid boats that run on a mixture of liquefied natural gas and electricity. The battery packs are the largest ever installed on a passenger ship. As a result, they have no emissions. In addition, all their waste is recycled on board.

Not only are the boats extremely comfortable, with large windows taking in the views, a walkway that runs around the entire perimeter of the ship, two gymnasiums and two plunge pools, but they also have great food that changes regularly to reflect the ship’s specialties to reflect. regions you pass through.

One day there might be reindeer on the menu – the taste is somewhere between beef and venison – the next day it’s king crab.

And for those whose appetite has been sharpened by the sea air, there is a special gourmet restaurant with a five-course evening outing.

Four of us – me, my wife and our two very worried teenage children – join 400 other passengers in Bergen for a six-night cruise to Kirkenes.

“They’re really into gray here, aren’t they?” says my fifteen-year-old daughter, sobbing, as she stares at the upholstery.

It is true that there is a certain monochrome madness throughout the ship. But their fears soon disappear when they see their cabin: a junior suite with double bed, sofa bed, flat-screen TV, balcony and – perhaps best of all – a shower that actually works.

Our fellow travelers are a predictably mixed bunch. Mostly Scandinavian, a few Brits – but certainly not oldies – and several outliers: both a Lutheran minister and a man with the shortest shorts – and most buttoned-up legs – I have ever seen.

The one thing we all have in common is that none of us expect nightly entertainment: and that’s a good thing, because there isn’t any. And so, with a discreet parp on the horn, we left.

The Havila boats function both as cruise ships and as passenger ferries: in six days they make 34 stops. Not that you would be aware of it; Thanks to hybrid engines, you glide almost silently from port to port.

This not only gives you the chance to meet the locals who use it as much as train commuters, but also gives you the feeling of being part of what’s happening on shore, rather than just watching it. to survey from a distance.

There are excursions at every stop of any significant length. In Trondheim we go e-biking and cycle through the old city with its river lined with red wooden warehouses. Then it’s back on board to sail into the Geiranger Fjord.

About 18 years ago, Geiranger was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, putting an end to crazy plans to run power lines from one side to the other.

As we enter the fjord, the captain turns off everything except the electric motor, so that the boat is now completely silent. “It’s a bit mystical today,” says an announcement over the ship’s PA. It certainly is. Abandoned farms lie along the mist-shrouded coast – the farmers eventually gave it all up and sought a less harsh life in the city – while huge streams of water flow down the cliffs into the sea.

Not surprisingly, the further north you go, the more the temperature drops. Slowly at first, and then with a sharp bump once you cross the Arctic Circle.

We pass a lighthouse that until 20 years ago was occupied by the keeper, his wife and their three young children. The children were only allowed out at low tide and then had to be tied to a rope at the lighthouse to ensure they were not swept away.

Perhaps the most unexpected pleasure of traveling through a landscape where the sun never really sets, but remains on the horizon for most of the night, is what film cameramen call “the golden hour” – the time around sunset when everything seems to change. radiates a golden glow – lasting all evening and into the wee hours of the morning.

And it’s not just the light that’s different. One of the strange things about Norway is that the Gulf Stream actually works.

For anyone who grew up constantly being told at school that the Gulf Stream is the reason Britain enjoys such a wonderfully temperate climate, while simultaneously staring glumly out of rain-swept windows, this will come as quite a surprise. But even though there are only occasional white patches along the coastline, the mountains beyond are covered in thick snow – even in what passes for high summer in Norway.

At Bodo we disembark, don flotation suits and climb aboard a fleet of motorboats that bounce us across the water to Saltstraumen, where the world’s strongest tidal current forms great foaming eddies that are believed to have sucked down entire whalers. their downfall. Five days after leaving Bergen we arrive at the Lofoten Islands, where moose roam the forests, the waters teem with sea otters and every year around June the Lofoten Insomnia cycling race is held for those who spend 24 hours on the 230 cycling want to cycle. km from one end of the island chain to the other.

Shrouded in a gray haze we finally arrive in Kirkenes, only 15 km from the Russian border. If you wish, you can stay on board and spend another six days on the way back to Bergen.

But for us it is the end of the journey. Or not completely.

We go to the famous Ice Hotel nearby to put on special harnesses and go for a walk with huskies. I spend all my time being dragged through thick birch forests by my tirelessly energetic husky. But am I complaining? Strangely enough, no.

Along with everything else about a week unlike any other, it was extraordinary and worth every moment.